Apple's app tsar sells own fart, urine apps

Apple is in damage control after its top enforcer of the iTunes App Store was found to be selling fart and urination simulator apps.

Apple is in damage control after its top enforcer of the iTunes App Store was found to be selling fart and urination simulator apps.

Phillip Shoemaker, the director of Apple's app store, sells his own iPhone apps under the company name Gray Noodle, including Animal Farts and the urination simulator iWiz.

Apple employees are forbidden from selling their own apps on the app store.

Shoemaker's ability to sell apps of such questionable taste has been met with derision from some developers, who have attacked Apple numerous times for its ambiguous, arbitrary app approval process that has seen everything from bikini girl photo apps to political cartoons to gay literature apps being rejected.

An Apple spokeswoman told Wired Magazine that Shoemaker's apps were published before he started at Apple, but several, including iWiz, were placed on the app store after he began his job there in March last year.

"Phillip's apps were written, submitted and approved before he became an Apple employee," the spokeswoman said.

"His experience and perspective as a developer is one of the valuable things he brings to Apple's developer relations team."

Wired's scoop, which was based partly on evidence found on Shoemaker's Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, has inspired a rabid investigation into Shoemaker by tech bloggers.

Valleywag found that Shoemaker was following at least 16 porn stars and escorts on Twitter. This could, however, have been because his account was set up to automatically follow people who follow him.

Shoemaker has since deleted his Twitter account, pbshoemaker, and updated his LinkedIn profile to remove references to Gray Noodle.

The iWiz app, according to the Gray Noodle website, lets users "make a non-stop urination sound" and you can also "set the fart threshold".

"How much gas do you want to pass? How many toots do you want during this urination cycle?," the site reads.

The Animal Farts app, on the other hand, "plays various bodily fluid noises from various animals".

"Hear a Panda taking a wiz. Hear a Rhino making a poot. Or even an alien farting," the description reads.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in a famous broadside fired at the rival Google Android app marketplace, earlier this year defended against criticisms of Apple's app approval process by saying that his app store offered "freedom from porn".

Last week, a midlevel Apple manager was arrested and accused of accepting more than $US1 million in kickbacks from Asian suppliers of iPhone and iPod accessories. He has pleaded not guilty.